Pronunciation · Words with fewer syllables than they look

How to pronounce “vegetable”

VEJ-tuh-bul

3 syllables · stress on “VEJ”

VEJtuhbul

Britishˈvedʒtəbl

Americanˈvedʒtəbl

In short

“vegetable” is pronounced VEJ-tuh-bul: 3 syllables, with the stress on “VEJ”. The second e is written but never spoken. Learners who sound out the word letter by letter produce a four-syllable version that immediately marks the speech as non-native. The version to avoid is ve-ge-TA-ble — four syllables, sounding the second e.

Say “vegetable” in 3 steps

1Three syllables: VEJ-tuh-bul.
2The second e is silent — go straight from the /dʒ/ to the /t/.
3Stress the first syllable and keep the last two short and light.

The version to avoid

Commonly said as: ve-ge-TA-ble — four syllables, sounding the second e

The second e is written but never spoken. Learners who sound out the word letter by letter produce a four-syllable version that immediately marks the speech as non-native.

Hear real people say it

Model audio is consistent; real speech is not. Hearing several actual speakers is what makes a word recognisable when someone says it at full speed.

Real speakers

2 human recordings

Actual people saying “vegetable”, not a synthetic voice. Real speech varies — that variation is what you need to recognise, and what a single model voice cannot show you.

Recordings from Wikimedia Commons by Association Shtooka, Judith Franck and No machine-readable author provided. Dvortygirl assumed (based on copyright claims)., licensed under CC BY 3.0 us / CC BY-SA 3.0. Full credits.

Practise it out loud

Reading about a sound does not change your mouth. Say it, hear it back, and fix one thing at a time.

Say it yourself

0/6 practised

Listen first, then record. You get feedback on the individual sounds, the stress and the rhythm — no account needed, and nothing is stored.

Three speakers per accent

Recordings are used only to generate this feedback and are not stored. Your accent is never penalised: IELTS scores intelligibility, and so do we.

The sounds inside this word

Each links to a full guide with mouth position, audio and drills. If a word keeps failing, the problem is usually one of these.

vv as in very ee as in bed dʒj as in job tt as in tea əa as in about (schwa)bb as in bed ll as in light

Don't confuse it with…

Minimal pairs isolate the exact contrast this word depends on — the fastest way to train both ear and mouth.

Who finds this word hardest

Your first language predicts which part of a word will break. These guides list the highest-impact fixes for each.

Hindi speakers: Hindi speakers' single highest-impact fix is the v/w merger: Hindi has one sound (व) where English has two, so 'wine' and 'vine' collapse.
Bengali speakers: For Bengali speakers the big three are: /f/ and /v/ hardening into aspirated p and b, /z/ turning into /dʒ/ ('zoo' → 'joo'), and s/sh swapping, plus an extra vowel breaking up consonant clusters (school → ischool).
Spanish speakers: Spanish has 5 pure vowels where English has around 20, so the highest-impact work for Spanish speakers is vowel contrasts (ship/sheep, cat/cut) plus the b/v merger and the extra 'e' that sneaks in before s-clusters (eSpain).
Arabic speakers: The signature fix for Arabic speakers is /p/: Arabic has no p, so 'pen' becomes 'ben' and 'park' becomes 'bark'.

More words with fewer syllables than they look

Same pattern, same fix. Learning them as a group is far faster than one at a time.

comfortableKUMF-tuh-bul chocolateCHOK-lut interestingIN-truh-sting temperatureTEM-pruh-chuh restaurantRES-tront businessBIZ-nus

Frequently asked questions

How do you pronounce vegetable?

vegetable is pronounced VEJ-tuh-bul, written /ˈvedʒtəbl/ in IPA. Three syllables: VEJ-tuh-bul.

How many syllables are in vegetable?

three: VEJ-tuh-bul. The stress falls on “VEJ”.

What is the most common mistake with vegetable?

ve-ge-TA-ble — four syllables, sounding the second e. The second e is written but never spoken. Learners who sound out the word letter by letter produce a four-syllable version that immediately marks the speech as non-native.

The full sound library

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